In regard to the situation in Panama: There was a time when France, Spain, Poland, Prussia and other countries interfered in the internal affairs of Great Britain. They sent troops and financial assistance to rebels in some of Britain's colonies because the rebels felt that the government was unjust and that they needed help to become independent and assure themselves of fair treatment. The rebellion I am referring to occurred in the 1770s and happened in what we now call the United States.

During her set at the Live 8 concert, Madonna yelled out to the crowd, "Do you want to start a revolution?" What hypocrisy! The woman who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on clothes and who just gave her young daughter a credit card wants to start a revolution. She should start with herself and give away her wealth. Now that would be revolutionary.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Most of the first contingent of Syrian rebels taught by U.S. army and intelligence officers in Jordan to use anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry have finished their training and are now returning to Syria to fight, a senior rebel said on Thursday. Western officials and Syrian rebel commanders declined to comment on reports in the German weekly Der Spiegel and other media outlets last week that said Americans were training anti-government Syrian forces in Jordan.

GAO, Mali, March 31 (Reuters) - Separatist rebels in pick-up trucks loaded with heavy weapons entered the northern Mali town of Gao on Saturday, a Reuters reporter in the town said. "I saw them entering the town itself and putting up their Azawad flags," the reporter said, referring to the northern desert territory which the rebels want to make their homeland. Regular army troops stationed in the town launched a response, he added. "Helicopters have started to take off. " (Reporting by Cheick Dioura; Writing by Mark John; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

BAMAKO, April 1 (Reuters) - Malian rebels have planted their flag in the northern town of Timbuktu after government forces fled the ancient trading post, a local lawmaker and a resident told Reuters. "They have arrived in the town. They are planting their flag," El Hadj Baba Haidara, member of parliament for Timbuktu, told Reuters by telephone. A resident said the MNLA rebels had planted their flag at the governor's office, the mayor's office and the main military camp.

LIMA (Reuters) - Shining Path rebels took between 10 and 20 workers hostage near Peru's natural gas fields on Monday to thwart an attempt by the army to capture them, sources in the military and a major gas company said. The army caught one leader of the remnant band of rebels in February and President Ollanta Humala, a former military officer, has vowed to stamp out the rest of the group soon. The insurgency has not posed a risk to the stability of the government since its Maoist founders were captured in the early 1990s during a civil war. The rebels are deeply involved in the drug trade in the world's top cocaine exporter.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels fighting the forces of President Bashar al-Assad are committed to a ceasefire under a U.N.-backed peace plan to end the year-long conflict, a rebel spokesman said on Tuesday. Colonel Qassem Saad al-Deen, spokesman of the joint command of the Free Syrian Army inside Syria, told Reuters the rebels would fight on if Assad does not pull back his troops and tanks from in and around cities by Thursday in line with the plan. "If the regime continues its shelling with mortars and tanks and does not commit to a ceasefire and to pull back the tanks and the troops, then we will resume the fight to defend our people," he said.